My big present was a camera from my parents. I still have it.
I remember also that my sister gave me a denim jacket (still have it, but it no longer fits!) and some friends of the family gave me a study Bible (still have that too). My other presents were either cards with money, or small things to take to college with me
I got cash, mostly. I used some of the cash (i.e. only about $40 of it) to buy a neat Waterman Phileas fountain pen. Not overly expensive, but it’s good enough for me.
I got a dictionary and a t-shirt.
Dictionary I still use, runs great, but the t-shirt is so ratty it’s only fit for sleepwear now. It’s 15 years old, after all. :eek:
I got shit-faced.
I had several beers before the ceremony, and more than several after. I went to the worst high school in America and was hard-pressed to take it very seriously.
My mom gave me a calculator about a month before graduation and the day I graduated she said it was my graduation gift. Then I had to walk home because my step-father wanted to go sit in a tavern that was just up the street from the high school.
I got a diploma and the hat, LOL. I didnt even get a card from anyone saying happy graduation…
Graduated yesterday, thank heavens. My parents bought me a cell phone several weeks ago (on a plan where I can call their cell phones and vice versa, free of charge), which I think is a useful and much appreciated gift. That, and hosting a graduation drop-in party, make up the bulk of my graduation present.
Relatives and friends have given me several hundred dollars, in addition to gift cards to Belks, Barnes and Noble, etc. Also a bracelet, several picture frames, and two beach towels for when I go off to college (which is near the beach.) A fishbowl for my dorm room, since I’ll miss my cats and dog. Several inspirational books, etc.
A boy in my class recieved a 2003 two-door Accord, bright red with a niiiice beige leather interior. It was a complete surprise, and fully paid for by his grandfather. Seeing this less-than-brilliant, usually-stoned, dirty and dredlocked young man drive around in that car gives everyone thrills and vicious pangs of jealousy. (I have no car, and won’t get one any time soon, and this seems terribly unfair at times.)
I think that is about the sweetest gift I’ve seen 
My granddaddy picked me a rose and gave it to me. He said “A pretty rose for the most beautiful rose I know”.
I think my haul was about $500 and a nice ring my mom had made for me.
My parents also helped me with college, but I didn’t consider that a HS graduation gift.
I think my college graduation haul was about $700 in cash.
My dad just built me an entertainment center for my grad school completion.
Oh, at our graduation party I also won a CD clock radio. It worked for about two years.
Since I finished grad school and landed a job, I’ve bought myself a horse. I’m not sure it counts if you buy it for yourself, though.
Hmm… I got a nice bout of bronchitus and some serious parental stress for my Graduation.
In Aus, we have our exams after our HS graduation and these exams are basically the only thing that count for University. Being the typical Asian parents, they went crazy nuts over the fact that I was missing out on valuable study time.
I got a laptop computer, the Dell Inspiron 4100. A most…inspirational model. Is that spelled right, inspirational? It looks so wrong.
And my grandparents gave me a stereo. It was going to be a nifty exciting expensive pen, but I was afraid I’d lose that.
No cars…I can’t drive and I go to school in New York. City.
I didn’t really get any sort of present when I graduated high school in '86. Instead, I sort of took over the Commodore 64 system that Dad had bought a couple of months earlier. It was supposed to be for him to use as a word processor with an electric typewriter acting as a printer but we couldn’t get it to work like that.
For my high school graduation, what I can remember getting was a bizarre bisque figurine from my grandmother; a small Girlie Party at our house after the grad ceremony ( I was class Valedictorian ); and a trip to Europe.